


with all the information

by choomchoom



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Alt Lost Light, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, M/M, little onscreen violence but lots of horrible things that happened in canon are implied
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:53:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23587954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/choomchoom/pseuds/choomchoom
Summary: Rewind was the sole survivor of the Lost Light's voyage.
Relationships: Chromedome/Rewind (Transformers), Rewind & Tailgate (Transformers)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	with all the information

**Author's Note:**

> As you may have guessed, this fic is made up of scenes that were once part of Lost and Found. I split this off into a separate thing largely because my structure for that fic stopped being conducive to an interesting story, but this stuff felt worth salvaging. 
> 
> A couple additional warnings - as may be obvious from the subject matter, this fic spends a lot of time engaging with death and grief. It's in a complicated sci-fi context, but it may still be something you want to steer clear of if those subjects are upsetting to you.

“No! You can’t! You can’t take that away.”

“I can and I am. I will not have you recording our every conversation and misstep. There are official records of our voyage in the captain’s log.”

“But that doesn’t have everything! The list of crewmembers, sure, but I bet it doesn’t say who showed up for Rodimus’s funeral.”

“Every crewmember was present at the funeral.”

“Exactly! And without my travelogue, no one in the future will understand what this crew is lik-”

“I don’t think you understand the context of the conversation we’re having. I am ordering you, as Captain of the Lost Light, to cease your documentation of the ship’s journey. I will not be swayed on this issue.”

Rewind felt his optics burning as he looked up and up and up at Ultra Magnus. Captain Ultra Magnus, issuing what had to be one of his first orders, considering that Rodimus’s body had barely cooled.

Drift was standing behind Ultra Magnus, still wearing his Spectralist regalia. He looked uncomfortable with the proceedings, but didn’t say anything. Likely he disagreed with Ultra Magnus, but didn’t want to risk the demotion that the new captain could give him if he spoke out against him. Anyone would understand that from watching the footage Rewind had recorded over the past several days.

“It’s my job,” Rewind said, trying a new avenue of protest.

“Your job is to cross-reference the information in the Matrix Map with the records in your database,” Ultra Magnus retaliated. “That was what was agreed upon before we left Cybertron.”

“So what? The whole time Rodimus was captain doesn’t matter?”

Rewind felt a familiar hand on his shoulder, grip tight enough to be warning rather than comforting. Ultra Magnus’s face was at its usual neutral.

Rewind knew that he’d crossed a line. But the prospect of not being able to record the journey filled him with dread. He didn’t like having the camera off and he didn’t like being ordered around, and this, combined with the strain of everything that had gone wrong on this mission so far, made Rewind feel kind of like he was about to snap in half.

Chromedome’s simple gesture helped some. It jolted him out of his anger enough for him to realize that this wasn’t an argument he was going to win. Best to concede now and not make the captain have to resort to something drastic.

Shuttering his optics to keep them from flaring with emotion, Rewind switched the camera off and leaned back a little into Chromedome’s steady hand. Ultra Magnus said something, but Rewind was too overcome to process it.

Chromedome shifted his posture to lead Rewind down the hallway, keeping them close with a hand across Rewind’s shoulders. Rewind assumed that they were going to their habsuite until Chromedome walked right by the lift that would have taken them there.

Rewind was calm enough by then to crack his optics open. “Where are we going?” he asked, hating how his voice was still staticky from his outburst earlier.

“It’s not far. It’s private.”

They walked to the end of the hallway, through a door, down a smaller, darker hallway, and arrived at a lift, which Chromedome led Rewind into. Chromedome pushed the topmost button and the lift began to rise.

At the top, the doors slid open to reveal an observatory. It seemed to be embedded within the red tufts that were the least explicable part of the Lost Light’s design, but in most directions, there were just stars. From here, the Lost Light seemed more like an island in space than a ship.

It was more exposed than the other observatories, and smaller. Rewind suspected that it had been designed as some kind of navigator’s tower, and that the little room would function as a breathtaking observatory as well hadn’t occurred to the Lost Light’s engineers.

It was lovely. It was the kind of place Rewind and Chromedome might have escaped to on any ship they’d worked on. But Rewind wasn’t in the mood to appreciate it. They had just come from their captain’s funeral. The war might have been over, but the tide of horror and tragedy never seemed to abate.

Chromedome settled on the floor, and Rewind gratefully followed, leaning against his conjunx’s larger frame. He shut his optics again to keep the burning in them from turning into overflow.

“I’m sorry about the travelogue,” Chromedome said. “Maybe if things settle down, Ultra Magnus will reconsider.”

“I can’t even imagine things settling down,” Rewind said, no longer hiding the emotion that came through in his voice. “I’ve lived long enough now. I think it’s never going to end. First the Functionists got thwarted. Woo-hoo! Immediately we have the Senate. The Senate gets taken out? Now we have the Decepticons. The war ends, and now we’re fighting sparkeaters and too far from Cybertron to contact anyone about it! About our captain _dying_.”

Chromedome’s hand had started making slow circles on Rewind’s back. “I think…we’ve lived long enough to see it all. Plenty of good things happened during all those times too…right?”

The last word was insecure enough to drag Rewind partially out of his self-pitying state of mind.

“That’s not to be dismissive,” Chromedome quickly added. “You spent more time with Rodimus than I did, especially these last couple weeks. Your grief is natural and justified. But it’s not everything. It’s not forever.” He was silent for a long moment. “Insert acknowledgment of the irony.”

Rewind leaned in closer, wrapping an arm around Chromedome’s waist. “You’re right,” he said. “I know you are. Just like I’m right when I have to tell you that sort of thing.”

Chromedome’s frame vibrated with a huff of laughter.

“I can’t believe he’s dead,” Rewind said, bringing the conversation back around to where it had started. Hopeful platitudes were nice, but not what he was in the mood for right now. “He could set himself on fire and give a speech that makes 200 people drop everything and risk their lives to go on a mystical quest with him. I thought he was going to live forever, I guess.”

“Despite himself,” Chromedome said, in what sounded like agreement.

Rewind turned on his projection software and focused on the floor, the only part of the room that wasn’t made of glass. Rodimus’s speech at Rivet’s Field started to play. _They’re real. I’m going to find them. And I want you all to come with me._

Chromedome’s arm was steady across Rewind’s shoulders as he played it. “Well, I guess from here to the funeral would make a nice tragedy, even if it’s not much of a travelogue,” Rewind mused. “Maybe some kind of story about not knowing where you’re going next.” Rewind clicked off the camera, which had been focused on a still shot of Rodimus at the end of the speech, arms wide, encompassing the masses around him in his excitement for what he thought was to come.

They stayed sitting there for a while. Rewind lost track of time, dozing on and off with the exhaustion that came after a day full of anger and sadness. Eventually, they were both roused by a ping coming from their communicators. It was a shipwide broadcast from Ultra Magnus.

 _Ultra Magnus thanks you for your show of support for our fallen captain at the funeral proceedings today. Every crewmember attended. That fact, as well as acknowledgment of the unity and character that it demonstrates, has been entered into the Captain’s Log. We will be making our next quantum jump in 24 hours as scheduled. An updated, more comprehensive duty schedule will be available at the same time. Until then, duties remain unchanged. Our fallen captain sacrificed his life for the sake of this mission. Thus, our directive – finding the Knights of Cybertron and bringing them back with us - remains unchanged. Any questions or concerns about my captaincy can be brought directly to me._   
_Signed,  
Ultra Magnus, Duly Appointed Enforcer of the Tyrest Accord, Captain of the Lost Light. _

Rewind felt a sense of resentment as he read it, but by the end, accepted that Ultra Magnus, aside from his stupid personal biases about certain things, at least had the best interests of Rodimus’s mission in mind. And from what Rewind knew from centuries of battlefield interviews, this was Ultra Magnus’s strong suit. Very suddenly responsible for 200 Autobots, in command of a quest with nearly impossible prospects – this was where Ultra Magnus thrived. 

“Also, Autobot Code discussions are now mandatory,” Chromedome said in his best imitation of Ultra Magnus, having finished reading the message at the same time.

Rewind laughed, and then stopped himself. It didn’t quite feel proper. He felt better though, from the time sitting quietly up here. The rest of the ship – the rest of the universe – felt more manageable than it had an hour ago. “Want to go see what everyone else is up to?” Rewind asked, moving his joints to stretch them. One elbow made a worrying popping sound, but a couple more motions assured him that it wasn’t an immediate problem.

“The answer is almost definitely drinking engex cocktails in Swerve’s habsuite and pretending they don’t have feelings,” Chromedome said. “We can head down if you like.”

Rewind took another moment to glance around at the red tendrils that the little observatory was nestled between, and, above them, the stars. He clicked his camera on and recorded a panorama of the view. Maybe Ultra Magnus wouldn’t be giving him detailed descriptions of command decisions like Rodimus had, but he couldn’t stop Rewind from recording. He couldn’t stop Rewind from doing what he liked. Something about the day and that exchange had brought back emotions from the days where that wasn’t the case.

Rewind took Chromedome’s hand as they headed back down on the lift.

Swerve’s, as Chromedome had predicted, was crowded. Ratchet and Drift seemed to be having some kind of incredibly intense conversation in one corner, and Trailcutter and Hoist were leading the people around them in some kind of competition for ‘wackiest Rodimus story’ while Tailgate looked on with a sad sort of fascination.

“You were right,” Rewind said, leaning towards Chromedome as he scanned the room. “We’ve only been on this mission three days, and you were right.”

“People will be people,” Chromedome said. “That’s all I predicted.”

It was an uncomfortable reminder of all the people whose brains Chromedome had seen the inside of, back in the day. Back before he’d quit mnemosurgery – well, quit mnemosurgery except for Sparkeaters.

They grabbed drinks from a cooler someone had brought, and Swerve followed them over to a corner of the crowded room. Chromedome raised his can in a toast. “Rodimus,” he said. Rewind and Swerve echoed him, and as ritual dictated, they clinked containers.

Swerve lingered near them. Rewind realized then that they were the only three people in the room who had made it out of Kimia. Of the eight of them who had survived, five had joined the crew of the Lost Light, and only four of them were still alive. Brainstorm was nowhere to be seen, which didn’t surprise Rewind. He was someone who preferred socializing on good days, and retreated to solitude at other times. Chromedome would probably end up checking on him later.

Rewind had another miniature crisis right then, this time about the possibility that he would never really feel safe anywhere. Safety on Kimia had been stolen from him by the explosion that had incapacitated him at the beginning of the Sweeps’ attack and hazy half-conscious memories of the carnage that had followed. Then here, immediately, Rodimus had died. And certainly Cybertron wasn’t any better.

But there had been good things, too, in all of those places, he tried to remind himself, as Chromedome had reminded him. But – nothing good had happened on the Lost Light yet. They’d ended up too far away from Cybertron to communicate, Rung had died, Rodimus had died, and then on top of all that Rewind had had his travelogue canceled. There had to be a way to rectify that. Some way to make a truly good memory here.

Maybe not today, though. It was still so soon after the funeral, and Rodimus would want them to mourn.

But Rewind would be on the lookout for the opportunity. After all, the immediate crisis had been solved. There was no more Sparkeater. He had time.

The next few weeks were a much-needed reprieve from drama. Rewind spent his days studying the matrix alongside Perceptor, and in his spare time, running over the footage of the little travelogue he’d had a chance to make, trying to figure out how to put it together into a cohesive whole. He almost gave up, time and time again. The mission was still going on. He couldn’t find a way to end the travelogue, to close the door on it, because it was still happening. Eventually, he realized that he hadn’t been banned from reporting his fight with Ultra Magnus, or Ultra Magnus’s first message to the crew as captain. The two mentions of the Captain’s Log were the perfect thing to stake the story on, and it started to come together from there. It ended up being more of an experimental short film than a travelogue, but Rewind thought that Rodimus might have liked it anyway.

When he was finished, and had shown Chromedome the edited version to audience-test it, he immediately started planning a viewing party. Nobody seemed to have parties on the Lost Light – no time or energy for it with the terrifying events of their first few days on board and the current status of Ultra Magnus as captain (mandatory Autobot Code seminars had, since his promotion, been instated). Rewind invited about twice the amount of people that would fit in their habsuite, assuming most of them wouldn’t show up. Everyone showed up and they had to move the party to the Oil Reservoir.

Before Rewind even got a chance to turn on his projector, Brainstorm had knocked Chromedome into the oil, Tailgate and Cyclonus were being not-travelogue-appropriate-ly affectionate in one corner, and Whirl had shown up, having heard from someone who turned out to be Swerve that this was where the engex would be tonight. For a moment, as people laughed and enjoyed themselves around Rewind, he didn’t even mind if he didn’t get the chance to show the video. This was what he’d wanted – for something good to happen here. Something that they could all share and remember fondly for the rest of their lives.

Eventually, though, Chromedome started wrangling people, getting them seated. It took at least ten minutes of him and then also Rewind being pushy about it before the room was quiet and still enough for Rewind to show what he’d prepared.

Chromedome sat next to him, still dripping wet, as the video projected onto the wall.

First, the speech at Rivet’s Field, juxtaposed with interviews of Rodimus being awkward, insecure and grandiose in turns, real and alive for all of it. Ultra Magnus telling Rewind that he had to stop filming the travelogue, followed by Rodimus asking him to make it in the first place. A selection from Ultra Magnus’s travelogue interview, that showed him playing up his uptight side, as he probably would have for his entire tenure as second-in-command, as long as it may have lasted. Rodimus’s funeral, to give context for Ultra Magnus being in charge. Rodimus making a plan to stop the Sparkeater – then the remainder of the speech. _They’re real. I’m going to find them. And I want all of you to come with me_. And at the end, a new beginning: Ultra Magnus’s first message to the crew as their captain. The line about the Captain’s Log demonstrating a new softness to him – a softness that related to Rodimus, that perhaps was because of what Rodimus had asked Rewind to do.

The audience, to Rewind’s great satisfaction, seemed captivated. Towards the end, Chromedome reached over and put a hand – still fragging sopping wet from the oil – in Rewind’s.

Rewind was in love with him and in love with the moment enough to not be bothered by it. He’d done it – finally, the Lost Light could feel like home.

* * *

In the weeks since Rodimus had died, life on the Lost Light had slowly crept toward normal. There had been no more explosions or Sparkeaters or deaths of any kind. Rewind was only just getting used to it.

“Domey? Have you seen my new camera filter?” Rewind asked Chromedome, who was sitting on his berth, frowning at a datapad.

He looked up when Rewind spoke. “The one you bought on Agardash? No, not since that night. Why?”

“It’s stupid,” Rewind said. “You know how I’m going to the performance tonight with Tailgate and Swerve? Well, Swerve thought it would be funny if I used it while Crosscut was performing. It’s probably better for everyone if I don’t find it, honestly.”

“But losing it isn’t like you.” Chromedome sounded way too concerned about the tacky face-changing camera filter that Rewind had picked up on the only shore leave they’d had so far (which had been incidental to Magnus needing to go down to a planet that might have technology to contact Cybertron). The camera filter picked up on facial features and reshaped them so that the user resembled a member of a different species. Tailgate had found the Earth panda bear face particularly charming.

But still: “You’re right,” Rewind said. “I guess I could have left it in Swerve and Red Alert’s hab that night? It’s not like I was…the most…sober…ever.”

“You were playing footage of Functionist-era dance competitions and trying to sing along to the music,” Chromedome said.

“I _know_ ,” Rewind replied, even though that did not feature in his admittedly hazy memories of the night in question.

Chromedome put down the datapad that he had been looking at. “Let’s ask Swerve and Red if they’ve seen it.”

“Are you sure? You looked like you were doing something.”

“I was doing the reading that Ultra Magnus assigned for the next seminar, which would have made me the only person on the crew to have it completed,” Chromedome said. “I’ve got time.”

They walked to Swerve and Red Alert’s hab hand in hand, chatting amicably. Knowing that Ultra Magnus was always teaching one of his seminars at this hour, Rewind snuck glances of film as he went. It wasn’t _travelogue_ , which wasn’t allowed, it was … lifestyle! That was a genre. Really, Rewind just liked having it on film that things were okay now, that most of the crew was alive and things were stable, on the edge of happy. The horrors their mission had started with had eased and only kept easing for the past weeks, and people were starting to settle in, to treat the Lost Light like their home and their lives like they weren’t about to be cut short.

Swerve answered the door when Chromedome knocked.

“I was wondering if I might have left something in your habsuite the other night?” Rewind opened.

“Oh, you mean the night you were crying actual _tears_ of laughter because Tailgate used the word _rewind_ in a sentence?”

“U-uh, yeah. That one.” That…didn’t sound all that improbable either.

“Well, I didn’t find anything anyone left here,” Swerve said. “What is it you’re looking for?”

Rewind explained the camera filter – that it was a little round disk that Swerve might not have noticed because it didn’t look like much when it wasn’t attached to a camera lens.

Before Swerve could respond, Red Alert’s voice came booming from the back of the suite. “I took that.”

Red Alert hadn’t been around for Swerve’s impromptu post-shore leave afterparty.

“Oh-kay,” Rewind said, stepping to the side so that he could make eye contact with Red Alert, who hadn’t moved from his berth. “ _Why_?”

“It seemed like it might be a recording device. As such, I had it put in security lockup.”

“So, how do I get it back?” Rewind asked. “It’s not a recording device.”

“It should still be in its locker,” Red Alert said. “Hound should be down there with the report about the item on file. Don’t tell him I sent you. I’ll see if he comms me as a test.”

“Okay then!” Rewind said, stepping back. “Thanks Swerve! See you later! Uh, thanks Red Alert.” Next to him, an amused-looking Chromedome waved awkwardly as the habsuite door slid shut.

“Well, that’s a lead,” Chromedome said. “Are we going to make it in time for your show?”

“Oh, it doesn’t start for hours,” Rewind said. “Do you know where Security Lockup is?” That had to be a new installation under Ultra Magnus – if it wasn’t, Rewind would have known about it from when it had been his business to record the important goings-on around the ship.

“It’s a repurposed room near the brig,” Chromedome said, with a worrying amount of authority.

“Why do you know that?”

“I went down there to see Brainstorm when he was locked up over – you know.” Chromedome’s voice had taken on a strange reflective quality, one that Rewind wasn’t sure he wanted to push on.

“Oh. Okay,” Rewind said.

They walked in silence for a few moments.

“You could have told me,” Rewind said, as gently as he could.

“I know, it’s just…those first few days after Rodimus, you were having a really hard time, and…I didn’t see the need to remind you of everything else that was going on.” Something in Chromedome’s tone suggested that while that was all probably true, it wasn’t the only reason he’d kept his visit to himself.

But that was in the past now. Ratchet had argued very strongly that Drift had been coerced into helping load Overlord onto the ship and keeping him a secret, and in the end, the Lost Light Internal Affairs Committee had extended their acceptance of Drift to Brainstorm, who Drift had named in his confession. Rewind was still uncomfortable thinking about Overlord in the basement, but Brainstorm had assured them all that the cell he was in would hold anything.

As promised, Hound was staffing the lockup room, which appeared to have been designed as a guard office for the brig. At some point, somehow, Red Alert had had secure lockers installed.

“Hi Hound.” Rewind waved as he walked in. “I’m here because, ah, I misplaced something that belonged to me, and I was told it might be here.”

Hound was frowning. “Okay. What is it?”

Rewind explained.

Hound, having not seen the filter, did not seem to be getting it.

“It doesn’t turn your whole face into a different face, it just adds features that kind of make you recognizable as something else.” Chromedome held up two fingers as though they were Andalite eye stalks to demonstrate. It didn’t seem to be helping.

“If you just find it and get it out, I can show you,” Rewind tried.

“Fine. What does it look like?” Hound turned to the monitor next to him.

“It’s a kind of thick, round disk about this size, attached to a rubber cylinder.” Rewind held his hands at the appropriate distance to demonstrate.

“Ah! That,” Hound said, turning back towards Rewind, apparently no longer needing to look up the item on his database. “I actually had that sent up to Perceptor. It seemed like some kind of alien technology, and if it is a recording device, I don’t actually think that it’s any safer here in secure lockup. But anyway, I sent it to Perceptor so that he might be able to make sense of it.”

“Have you heard back from him?” Rewind asked.

“No, actually. I assume he’s got it in the queue.”

“Well, thanks then,” Rewind said. “I guess I’ll be chasing him down.”

“Hey, uh – “ Hound paused for a moment. “When you do find that thing, if you could bring it down here and show me what it does? It sounds pretty cool.”

“Sure thing,” Rewind said.

“Is there anywhere on the damn ship this thing hasn’t been?” Chromedome complained lightly as the lift took them to the laboratory floors.

“It’s a big ship, so I would hope so,” Rewind replied, pointedly not giving a yes or no response.

Perceptor’s lab didn’t have a doorbell, and Rewind knew that it was too big inside for Perceptor to be able to hear if he knocked, so he just went ahead and opened it.

“I didn’t want any of this.” Drift, to Rewind’s surprise, was speaking to Perceptor in the lab. “Even the Committee thought so, which honestly surprised me. But I know I still owe you an apology. You fought Overlord before – you’re the only one on the ship who I’m sure has. If I could have avoided putting you in harm’s way – in _his_ way – know that I would have. We worked together for a long time, Percy. You’re important to me. And I – I hope that you can forgive me.”

“You weren’t at fault, Drift,” Perceptor replied. “But I accept your apology.”

Rewind considered just turning around and leaving. The camera filter was _not_ important enough for him to interrupt such a clearly personal conversation. But before he could execute that strategy, Perceptor looked over at him and Chromedome standing just outside the door. Drift’s gaze followed immediately after.

“Can I help you?” Perceptor asked.

“I –” Now it would just look like they’d come here to snoop unless Rewind stated his actual reason. “It’s just that I was told you have one of my belongings. I’m so sorry, this is clearly a bad time. I can come back later.”

“Is it that camera glass that Hound was going to send me because he thought it was some sort of recording device?” Perceptor asked, his visible optic ridge raised skeptically. “I never received it, but I’ll let you know if it turns up.”

“Okaythankyousorry!” Rewind said, and then he and Chromedome were out of there.

“I guess I should have suspected that we’d hit a dead end eventually,” Chromedome mused after the door to the laboratory had slid shut.

“So Hound thinks he sent it here, but Perceptor never received it,” Rewind reiterated.

“Do you know who Hound is using as runners?” Chromedome asked.

“I know Tailgate’s one – OH!” Rewind exclaimed. “I know what happened. Hound must have given it to Tailgate, and Tailgate must have opened the box and noticed what was inside, and then stashed it away to give back to me the next time he saw me. He saw it that night – he knows what it is.”

“Speak of the-“ Chromedome’s voice had Rewind turning around towards the sound of a small car screeching around a corner and speeding – like really, like over Ultra Magnus’s duly enforced speed limit speeding – until he screeched to a halt right in front of them and transformed, every sound of the transformation indicating panic.

“Rewind! I’m so sorry! Ultra Magnus has your Agardash souvenir!”

“It’s okay, it was a toy, it’s not a big deal,” Rewind said, mentally giving up hope that he was going to find the filter intact. “What happened?”

“I saw it in the security holdings and knew it was yours, and I took it so I could give it back to you, but Ultra Magnus noticed that I didn’t deliver it where I was supposed to and he found me and took it away because he said it was _ill-gotten_. I don’t even know what that _means!_ I tried to explain but he had to teach a class, and it just got out, and I don’t know what he’s going to do, I’m sorry!”

“Ultra Magnus hates fun but he knows we weren’t trying to harm the ship. It’ll be fine,” Rewind assured him. His own disappointment could wait until his friend had calmed down. “Thanks for trying to get it back for me, though. I really appreciate it.”

Tailgate cocked his head. “Why did it take you all this time to come searching for it?” he asked.

“I didn’t notice it was missing until today, when Swerve asked if we could use it for the show.”

“Oh. That makes sense. What do people say – _star sabered?_ That’s what you were that night. You stood on Red Alert’s energon infuser and made a whole speech about how minibots are better than everyone else.”

“I – _WHAT?_ ”

“You made some valid points,” Chromedome interjected.

“Well at least it wasn’t recorded,” Rewind grumbled.

“Oh, you were definitely filming yourself when you were doing it,” Tailgate said.

Before Rewind had time to fact-check that with his archives, he heard large footsteps from around the corner.

“Rewind. I need to speak with you.” Ultra Magnus’s voice boomed as he moved down the corridor, coming to a stop towering over the three of them. The door to the lab opened behind them. Rewind glanced back to see who it was. Drift took one look at the budding confrontation and disappeared in the other direction down the hallway. “It’s regarding an artifact from an unknown source that was identified as a possible security risk.”

“I – uh – yes?”

Ultra Magnus lifted the filter out of a compartment with surprisingly gentle hands. “I’m told this belongs to you,” he said, and he bent down to hand it to Rewind.

Rewind accepted it, grateful but suspicious. “You’re just going to…give it back to me?”

“Well, don’t _question_ it,” Chromedome muttered, voice hopefully too low for Ultra Magnus to hear. Rewind ignored him.

“You registered it in the proper database on the shuttle back from Agardash. It appears that Red Alert failed to check the updated Foreign Artifacts Listing before he sent it for processing, as did Hound when he sent it off for identification. All of that was a needless hassle and a waste of crew time and energy, so yes, I am just giving it back to you.”

Rewind certainly didn’t remember registering his trinket in the Foreign Artifacts Listing, but that appeared to be consistent with the rest of that evening. He was trying to contain his delight and resisting the urge to slap the filter on his camera now and use it on Ultra Magnus (Swerve and Tailgate would _die_ of laughter if they got to see that footage) when someone else came barreling around the corner in vehicle mode.

Rewind heard them transform with a battlelike efficiency, the sound indicating that they were intent on something. _Furiously_ intent. Before Rewind could turn around to see who it was, Chromedome’s hand was clutching his forearm, yanking him away from Ultra Magnus and into the hallway Drift had disappeared down. And just in time – the Magnus armor was falling apart, it seemed, from the edges. The upper piece came off all at once, leaving Minimus exposed, fear in his expression that went beyond what Ultra Magnus’s faceplate was even capable of generating.

And then Chromedome was yanking Rewind down the corridor, Rewind sprinting and still struggling to keep up.

“Where’s Tailgate?” he asked.

“If he’s not behind us there’s nothing we can do.”

“Who _was_ that?”

“I hope to Primus I’m wrong, but I think it’s the Decepticon Justice Division.”

Rewind’s whole body went numb, except for where Chromedome was still clutching his forearm. Somehow, he kept running.

* * *

Space was cold. Cold was familiar. Cold had seeped into every bit of Rewind’s frame, in the apparently _months_ he’d been unconscious. And for every second since then except for a woozy moment in which he’d been cradled in Megatron’s arms. _Megatron_. Redeemed now, apparently. An Autobot. Rewind wasn’t sure how he felt about that. But it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. He was out here waiting to die, after all. To disappear, so that the Rewind who’d been on the Lost Light that hadn’t been slaughtered could go on with his life.

The access hatch to the shuttle opened. Probably Nightbeat, coming to see if he was gone yet. Rewind didn’t bother to turn around as the bot approached, heavy magnaclamps obscuring his gait. Maybe he would disappear before Nightbeat reached him. Maybe the universe had been waiting for someone to notice that he was still there.

Then whoever it was stepped up right behind Rewind, and he had to turn. Somehow, after everything, he hadn’t expected to see Chromedome’s face.

It had to be some kind of pity visit. This Chromedome didn’t know that seeing the face of the mech who had died for him only pulled at the carefully sequestered storm of emotion in Rewind’s spark.

Rewind was about to say so when his optics slid away from Chromedome’s face and he caught sight of his badge. His black badge. Mourning colors.

If this Chromedome and his Rewind were still going strong, then why –

Oh. Megatron had lied. Of course Megatron had lied. Rewind would have lied too, in his place.

Something must have changed in Rewind’s expression, before Chromedome, after nearly a full minute of staring, moved. He gingerly took a seat on the hull, a respectful distance away, his faceplate a mix of emotions that Rewind didn’t think he’d ever seen before.

Rewind knew that he looked wretched. And he had so many questions for this version of Chromedome. Guilt twinged within him as he slid closer, drawn in by his need for comfort right now, and millions of years of shared history, and love. When Chromedome put his arm around Rewind’s shoulders, the storm quieted. For now.

* * *

Rewind felt the gun kick back at himself, heard the bullet’s _thunk_ as it hit its target, and still could only half-tell if he’d really done it. His processor was split between two realities, two historical archives and two sets of autobiographical memories, and none of it felt more than halfway real.

Taking the shot felt right in some way, in some stony place deep inside him. A place that had sprouted into existence when he’d experienced evil in its rawest form. When he’d seen the kinds of things that couldn’t be combated by reason and well wishes. Some things, Rewind had learned, had to never be allowed to survive.

The timeline he was from could vanish forever, and Rewind wouldn’t miss it. He was the only one who could make the decision – the only one with all the information.

Still, as he saw the newly created Megatron’s spark fade to nothing in front of him, he felt only numbness. He’d done the right thing, he knew. But he himself could cease to exist in this moment and he wouldn’t care one bit.

Then Chromedome was wrestling the gun out of his hand, his touches fond and gentle in a way that Rewind hadn’t expected. Then he knelt and gathered Rewind in his arms.

Chromedome. Rewind hadn’t thought about him in all this – the extra set of memories had made it hard to. Rewind hadn’t been with Chromedome on the Functionist Universe – only Dominus. He’d never even met Chromedome. Rewind didn’t know what possessed him to search the database for his other-universe conjunx, but he quickly found what he’d expected: a record of his death in anti-CC pogroms while Rewind had been off-planet searching for Luna 1 with Dominus. Chromedome had never even _become_ Chromedome.

Rewind leaned his head on Chromedome’s shoulder, letting his processor go quiet for a moment. Maybe – maybe some things about the universe he’d come from had been okay. There was some good that he could keep in his mind, and take forward with him into the future.

Having made his peace, Rewind still couldn’t bring himself to object when Whirl ruined it all.

* * *

Rewind thought he was in his right mind when he came up to Chromedome’s door and knocked. At least, he was lucid enough to tell what was real and what was not, and to admit that he’d been having trouble with the distinction earlier. He still remembered the other timeline, but it had faded, his processor emphasizing his primary autobiographical memories over those ones. Rewind suspected that they might fade away entirely with time. Tempting as a lifetime with Dominus was to hold on to, he knew that he had to let it go. That life had been real once, but real for another Rewind who had died a long time ago.

The things that mattered most were the things that were real now.

Chromedome opened the door with a speed that suggested he hadn’t been recharging. The tension in his frame and the washed-out color of his faceplate suggested the same.

“Can I stay here?” Rewind asked. Not all was well, not yet, but Rewind had come to recognize Chromedome’s behavior when he’d first come on the ship as part of a self-destructive pattern that he’d become all too familiar with over the past millennia. He still felt the loss of the other Chromedome, the one who had shown him the lookout tower and comforted him and died for him, but the pain had faded enough for him to acknowledge that Chromedome would want him to be happy. Chromedome would want him to work for this.

“Of course.” Chromedome stepped aside to admit him, exhaustion evident in every movement. He sat heavily on his berth as the door closed behind Rewind. “I don’t know if I have the energy to…talk about things, right now.”

“That’s okay,” Rewind said. “We can just recharge.” One thing first, though – he noticed that the box of the other Rewind’s things was shoved into a corner, under Chromedome’s berth. He’d cleared out the space for Rewind. Rewind took the one possession he’d happened to bring with him - the camera filter he’d picked up on a planet the other Rewind had never been to - and laid it on the shelf above his head, claiming the space as his own.

Chromedome, laying flat on the other berth now, didn’t comment. But when Rewind held his hand out between them, Chromedome took it, and Rewind drifted off feeling safe for the first time since he’d heard Chromedome say the words _Decepticon Justice Division_.

* * *

He awoke to gasps of pain and bolted upright, his hand sliding out of Chromedome’s, for a moment back on his ship as the crew was being slaughtered by the DJD. It only lasted a moment, though, the still-unfamiliar habsuite and the slow realization that Chromedome was lying unharmed beside him working together to ground him in the present.

Suitably oriented, he stood up to address the situation. Chromedome was clearly in the throes of a nightmare next to him, fans whirring frantically and the disturbing vocalizations that had woken Rewind increasing in frequency.

“Domey? Wake up.” Rewind put a hand on the side of Chromedome’s helm; the area was sensitive enough that Chromedome usually woke to the gesture without any yelling or force.

It worked. Chromedome startled awake, lurching upwards as his optics flickered online. He immediately curled in on himself, helm in hand, panicked gasps barely subsiding.

Terror seized Rewind’s spark. The nightmares had been getting better. Recently, Chromedome had been aware and talking within a moment of waking. They hadn’t been this bad since the weeks right after their trip to the Valkyrie.

Rung had suggested that Chromedome’s extreme reaction after injecting that time had been induced mostly by the stress they’d been under afterwards – being captured by Decepticons wasn’t exactly the place for a stable recovery.

Doubly so for weathering the death of your conjunx and believing that it was your fault.

Rewind slid one of Chromedome’s hands off of his faceplate and replaced it with his own. He climbed onto the berth and sat next to Chromedome, knowing that the warmth and noises of Rewind’s frame would help him feel safer. “I’m here,” he said.

Chromedome’s voice hitched in response, and he seemed to curl in tighter on himself. Like he’d done back on Kimia, Rewind started babbling. He was hard-pressed to think of safe, non-upsetting topics at the moment, and landed on Rung, who, he’d realized over the course of their time-traveling adventure, was a fascinating sort of universal constant, present but never interfering in nearly all the major events in Cybertronian history. He was through the second Golden Age when Chromedome’s ventilations started to slow and his body started to relax. “What was it?” Rewind asked gently, when he suspected Chromedome was lucid enough to comprehend and answer.

Chromedome just shook his head. Rewind stroked his faceplate, took Chromedome’s free hand with his own as he waited him out. “I’m sorry,” was Chromedome’s eventual raspy answer.

Rewind felt his optics burning with frustration as Chromedome continued to shudder against him. This was wrong. Chromedome had been getting better. Chromedome was here – right here – but he was also gone, and Rewind missed him desperately.

They stayed like that for a while, arms wrapped around each other, but eventually the guilt overtook the comfort and Rewind had to pull away.

* * *

Chromedome left the hab early the next morning to go speak with Brainstorm in the brig - and wasn’t that a strange callback – leaving Rewind at a loose end. Everything on this ship was so similar and so different from the Lost Light he remembered. It made going anywhere feel intimidating, as though there was a chance he would run into a ghost. Rewind knew that the last thing he needed was to stay in the habsuite alone, though, so he decided to take a walk down to the oil reservoir, the one place on the Lost Light he had only fond memories of.

Tailgate was driving down the hallway as Rewind emerged, and he stopped and changed shape upon seeing Rewind.

“Hi!” he said. “We haven’t met, I guess. I’m Tailgate.”

“I…know who you are,” Rewind said, doing his best to force the memory of Tailgate, body pinned to the wall, internals exposed, to the very back of his mind.

“Oh.” Tailgate took a half-step back.

Rewind wasn’t sure how much everyone knew about what had happened to his Lost Light but Tailgate’s expression and body language said a lot. Rewind supposed he would have to get used to withholding the details.

“Where are you headed?” he asked instead, grasping desperately for a conversation topic.

“Oh! Swerve’s. You wanna come? Today’s drinks are time travel themed.”

“Uh – okay.”

“Great! Let’s go.” Tailgate’s voice was artificially peppy, his way of putting on a brave face. It was eerie. Rewind could read this mech’s body language well enough to practically know what he was thinking, but he’d never met him before. He did notice that the marking on Tailgate’s arm said “Waste Disposal” instead of “Bomb Disposal” though, which explained a few things. Lots of anecdotes that Rewind’s friend Tailgate had sprouted off to his crewmates hadn’t held up with the relevant information from Rewind’s archive, but Rewind had never managed to think of a way to ask about it.

They walked past the habsuite that Swerve and Red Alert had shared on Rewind’s Lost Light, which made sense. Here, Ultra Magnus hadn’t had a chance to rearrange housing based on proximity to work assignments. But then they left the habitation block altogether, and Rewind was confused. “I thought you said we were going to Swerve’s?”

Tailgate turned an incredulous look on him. “Did you think I meant Swerve’s hab? I don’t even know where that is. No, silly, we’re going to Swerve’s bar.”

Rewind…waited.

“Your expression is telling me that you didn’t have that on your ship.”

“We didn’t,” Rewind said, again deciding to keep the details to himself. Even expanding that to “We didn’t because Ultra Magnus was in charge” was a reminder of the tragedy that could have befallen this crew if they’d just been quantum-yanked to a different sector of space.

Rewind shut up, and Tailgate led him into…the theater? No, Swerve’s bar, apparently. Rewind turned on his camera on instinct like he always did when he went somewhere new.

But this place wasn’t new. There were people chatting and laughing in every corner, a hand-scribbled menu with drinks called Tardis and Delorean propped on the bar, but this wasn’t what this place should have been like the next time Rewind stepped inside. It should have been for Crosscut’s play, and he and Tailgate and Swerve were supposed to laugh and enjoy it and take stupid pictures with the stupid camera filter. Swerve wasn’t supposed to be across the room and behind a bar, waving and then faltering, apparently realizing that Rewind wasn’t the Rewind who had been here before. The bar was too loud and everything was wrong and Rewind didn’t belong here.

Rewind mumbled an apology to Tailgate and took off back out the door, stopping in the hallway outside the theater – the bar. He shut his optics, hoping that it would accomplish something in quieting the streams of competing input from his senses and his memory.

“Rewind?” Tailgate’s voice was cautious. He had followed Rewind out of the bar and was standing in front of him in the hallway, hands hanging by his sides. “What’s wrong?”

 _What’s wrong._ Not a tone-deaf _what’s up_ , not a faux-ignorant _are you okay_ – acknowledgement and support. This was Tailgate’s particular brand of empathy and Rewind recognized it. Rewind onlined his optics.

“It’s a lot to take in, is all,” he said, the memory of Tailgate hanging from the wall dead slipping way in favor of this new memory of Tailgate standing here in this hallway in front of him, kindness and concern in his optics. “None of this is quite what I’m used to.”

“Well if there’s anything Chromedome hasn’t caught you up on, I’d be happy to!” Tailgate said. “Not everything here’s been good, of course, but at least most of us have survived.” He cringed. “That was a terrible way to put it. All I mean is – good things happened. Maybe that’s why we’re still here.”

“Good things happened on my ship too,” Rewind said. “But I get what you mean. And I think I will take you up on your offer. Could we maybe…go somewhere else, though?”

Tailgate nodded, relief on his faceplate.

* * *

“So that’s everything that happened on Hedonia,” Tailgate finished, swinging his legs casually over the side of the oil reservoir as he talked. Safe, neutral ground that Rewind had been happy to retreat to.

“I’m sorry I missed it,” Rewind said honestly.

“I’m sure there are things just as good to come,” Tailgate assured him. “I have something to ask you, actually.”

Rewind braced himself. He understood that everyone would be curious about the other Lost Light – what had happened, how they’d each died. He had just really hoped that it wouldn’t come up so soon.

“On your Lost Light, did you host movie nights?”

Rewind was taken aback, and disappointed with his answer and how it probably compared to the one Tailgate was hoping for. “Not really,” he admitted. “Just once, and it was amazing. But remember, we weren’t actually on the mission all that long. It was only about a month between the launch and the attack.”

Tailgate nodded. “The Rewind from this ship started hosting them earlier than that, so I guess a bunch of things must have been different,” he said. “It’s just…after he died, I wished that I could have told him how important those movie nights were to me.” Tailgate wasn’t looking at Rewind anymore. He was staring down at the reflection of his own faceplate in the oil. “One time before a fight, somebody told me to picture the time that I’d been happiest. It was while I was still lying to everyone about what my life had been like before being trapped underground – I assume I did that to you guys too?”

Rewind nodded, trying to project understanding.

“So, he thought that I would be picturing some big battle I won or some other accomplishment. But what I thought about was movie nights. I just wanted you to know that.”

Rewind wasn’t sure how to respond. It wasn’t a compliment to him, after all. He hadn’t done anything. In that moment, he desperately wanted to speak to the other Rewind - compare notes. Maybe yell at him about how many warning signs he had to have missed from Chromedome. Rewind felt like he was trying to fit into somebody else’s life, and he didn’t have all the information he needed to do it as seamlessly as he wanted to.

“So Ratchet mentioned something about you and a miracle cure for Cybercrosis?” Rewind asked after a few minutes. “Tell me how that one played out.”

Tailgate launched into another eager stream of chatter, and Rewind listened.


End file.
